Heart attacks increasingly common in young women, research finds

New research discovers a distressing approach in the frequency of heart attacks in recent times. The outcomes specify that young women are more probable than young men to need hospitalization for heart attacks, as well as to get other cardiometabolic disorders. Increasingly young women develop heart disease, and physicians should pay more attention to women, authors of a research say.

Cardiovascular disease is an umbrella term which covers many different conditions that distress the heart or blood vessels. It also includes stroke, congenital heart defects, coronary heart disease, and peripheral artery disease which causes around 1 in 3 deaths in the United States.

Moreover, cardiovascular disease accounts for nearly 836,546 deaths each year. Thus it seems to be the “top killer of both women and men” in the U.S. Though, there are sex variances in the occurrence of some cardiovascular measures. Like coronary heart disease, a cardiovascular disorder can eventually lead to heart attacks.

A recognized research body has revealed that coronary heart disease is more dominant among men at any age. This may have directed to the common insight that “heart disease is a man’s disease.”

But, latest researches have pointed out a “worrying” trend that is a steady rise in the number of young women who pass away of coronary heart disease. The new study, presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions meeting in Chicago and published in the journal Circulation. It adds to the rising evidence that heart attacks are progressively common in young women.

Heart attacks no longer an old man’s disease

Dr. Sameer Arora, who is a cardiology companion at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, is the main author of the study.

Dr. Arora and his team observed data on nearly 29,000 people aged 35–74 years old who doctors admitted to hospital for acute myocardial infarction between 1995 and 2014. The scientists found that the percentage of young patients who doctors admitted to the hospital “progressively increased, from 27 percent in 1995–1999 to 32 percent in 2010–2014.”

The research also found that this rise was even more significant in women. Specifically, 21 percent of the heart attack admissions in hospitals were young women at the start of the study. But this percentage jumped to 31 percent by the end.

Moreover, the study exposed that young women were less probable than young men to have cardiovascular treatments, such as beta-blockers, antiplatelet drugs, and coronary angiography. In conclusion, young women were at a greater risk of chronic kidney disease, hypertension, and diabetes compared with young men.

The study’s main author notes on the results, saying, “Cardiac disease is occasionally deliberated an old man’s disease, but the course of heart attacks among young persons is going the wrong way. It’s really going up for young women.”

“This is alarming,” continues Dr. Arora. “It expresses that we need to focus on this population.”

A ‘wake-up call to male doctors’

Dr. Arora describes why cardiologists and other healthcare specialists need to pay more care to women’s cardiac health. “Usually, coronary artery disease is perceived as a man’s disease, so women, when come to the emergency section with chest pain, might not be seen as high-risk,” he says.

“Moreover, the appearance of heart attack varies in women and men. Women show more unusual symptoms than men, and their heart attack is more probable to be missed.”

Dr. Ileana L. Piña, a cardiologist and professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, also adds to the findings. “The number one killer of women is not uterine cancer or breast cancer; the number one killer of women is heart disease. And, these kinds of figures are going to keep coming up.”

“Women will do everything for their relations, but they frequently leave themselves for last. We must teach women to change their health attitude and take good care of themselves,” she advises.

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Ilene Johnstone is an author at Top Health Journal. Currently, she is working as a biochemist and researcher. She is keen on emerging research, diet, new treatments, diseases and other trending topics in health. She delivers best regarding health to viewers in the form of interesting writings.